'Idiot' was formerly a technical term in legal and psychiatric contexts for some kinds of profound intellectual disability where the mental age is two years or less, and the person cannot guard themself against common physical dangers. The term was gradually replaced by 'profound mental retardation', which has since been replaced by other terms.[1] Along with terms like moron, imbecile, retard and cretin, its use to describe people with mental disabilities is considered archaic and offensive.[2]Moral idiocy refers to a moral disability.
The word "idiot" comes from the Greek noun ἰδιώτηςidiōtēs 'a private person, individual' (as opposed to the state), 'a private citizen' (as opposed to someone with a political office), 'a common man', 'a person lacking professional skill, layman', later 'unskilled', 'ignorant', derived from the adjective ἴδιοςidios 'personal' (not public, not shared).[3][4] In Latin, idiota was borrowed in the meaning 'uneducated', 'ignorant', 'common',[5] and in Late Latin came to mean 'crude, illiterate, ignorant'.[6] In French, it kept the meaning of 'illiterate', 'ignorant', and added the meaning 'stupid' in the 13th century.[7] In English, it added the meaning 'mentally deficient' in the 14th century.[2]
Many political commentators, starting as early as 1856, have interpreted the word "idiot" as reflecting the Ancient Athenians' attitudes to civic participation and private life, combining the ancient meaning of 'private citizen' with the modern meaning 'fool' to conclude that the Greeks used the word to say that it is selfish and foolish not to participate in public life.[8] But this is not how the Greeks used the word.
It is certainly true that the Greeks valued civic participation and criticized non-participation. Thucydides quotes Pericles' Funeral Oration as saying: "[we] regard... him who takes no part in these [public] duties not as unambitious but as useless" (τόν τε μηδὲν τῶνδε μετέχοντα οὐκ ἀπράγμονα, ἀλλ᾽ ἀχρεῖον νομίζομεν).[9] However, neither he nor any other ancient author uses the word "idiot" to describe non-participants, or in a derogatory sense; its most common use was simply a private citizen or amateur as opposed to a government official, professional, or expert.[10] The derogatory sense came centuries later, and was unrelated to the political meaning.[11][4][2]
Disability and early classification and nomenclature
In 19th- and early 20th-century medicine and psychology, an "idiot" was a person with a very profound intellectual disability, being diagnosed with "idiocy". In the early 1900s, Dr. Henry H. Goddard proposed a classification system for intellectual disability based on the Binet-Simon concept of mental age. Individuals with the lowest mental age level (less than three years) were identified as idiots; imbeciles had a mental age of three to seven years, and morons had a mental age of seven to ten years.[12] The term "idiot" was used to refer to people having an IQ below 30[citation needed][13][14] IQ, or intelligence quotient, was originally determined by dividing a person's mental age, as determined by standardized tests, by their actual age. The concept of mental age has fallen into disfavor, though, and IQ is now determined on the basis of statistical distributions.[15]
In the obsolete medical classification (ICD-9, 1977), these people were said to have "profound mental retardation" or "profound mental subnormality" with IQ under 20.[16]
Regional law
This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(December 2011)
United States
Until 2007, the California Penal Code Section 26 stated that "Idiots" were one of six types of people who are not capable of committing crimes. In 2007 the code was amended to read "persons who are mentally incapacitated."[17] In 2008, Iowa voters passed a measure replacing "idiot, or insane person" in the State's constitution with "person adjudged mentally incompetent."[18]
In the constitution of several U.S. states, "idiots" do not have the right to vote:
The constitution of the state of Arkansas was amended in the general election of 2008 to, among other things, repeal a provision (Article 3, Section 5) which had until its repeal prohibited "idiots or insane persons" from voting.[22]
In literature
A few authors have used "idiot" characters in novels, plays and poetry. Often these characters are used to highlight or indicate something else (allegory). Examples of such usage are William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and William Wordsworth's The Idiot Boy. Idiot characters in literature are often confused with or subsumed within mad or lunatic characters. The most common intersection between these two categories of mental impairment occurs in the polemic surrounding Edmund from William Shakespeare's King Lear.
In Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot the title refers to the central character Prince Myshkin, a man whose innocence, kindness and humility, combined with his occasional epileptic symptoms, cause many in the corrupt, egoistic culture around him to mistakenly assume that he lacks intelligence. In The Antichrist, Nietzsche applies the word 'idiot' to Jesus in a comparable fashion, almost certainly in an allusion to Dostoevsky's use of the word:[23] "One has to regret that no Dostoevsky lived in the neighbourhood of this most interesting décadent; I mean someone who could feel the thrilling fascination of such a combination of the sublime, the sick and the childish."[24][25]
References
Citations
^"The Clinical History of 'Moron,' 'Idiot,' and 'Imbecile'". merriam-webster.com.
^ a. R.L. Gibson (Louisiana), "Notes of European Travel--France", De Bow's Review21 (3rd series):1:375-405 (1856), p. 389 b. The Sanitary Era6:117:12 (October 1892), New York, p. 210 c. Bouck White, The Free City: A Book of Neighborhood, 1919, p. 53 d. John Robertson Macarthur, Ancient Greece in Modern America, 1943, p. 195 e. Anthamatten, Eric (2017-06-12). "Trump and the True Meaning of 'Idiot'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2022-01-03. Retrieved 2017-06-26. f. Parker, Walter C. (January 1, 2005). "Teaching against Idiocy". Phi Delta Kappan. 86 (5): 344–351. doi:10.1177/003172170508600504. S2CID 144893136.
^Matthew Landauer, "The Idiōtēs and the Tyrant: Two Faces of Unaccountability in Democratic Athens", Political Theory42:2:139-166 (April 2014), JSTOR 24571390, p. 145
^Sparkes, A. W. (1988). "Idiots, ancient and modern". Australian Journal of Political Science. 23 (1): 101–102. doi:10.1080/00323268808402051.
^Zaretsky, Herbert H.; Richter, Edwin F.; Eisenberg, Myron G. (2005), Medical aspects of disability: a handbook for the rehabilitation professional (third edition, illustrated ed.), Springer Publishing Company, p. 346, ISBN978-0-8261-7973-9.
^Rapley, Mark (2004), The Social Construction of Intellectual Disability, Cambridge University Press, p. 32, ISBN978-0-521-00529-6.
^Cruz, Isagani A.; Quaison, Camilo D. (2003), Correct Choice of Words' : English Grammar Series for Filipino Lawyers (2003 ed.), Rex Bookstore, Inc., pp. 444–445, ISBN978-971-23-3686-7.
^Vibeke Grover Aukrust (2011). Learning and Cognition. Elsevier. pp. 95–96. ISBN978-0-12-381438-8.
^World Health Organization (1977). Manual of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Injuries, and Causes of Death(PDF). Vol. 1. Jeneva. p. 213.
^. State of California. Archived from the original on 2009-06-27. Retrieved 2007-09-21.
^Sharples, Tiffany (5 November 2008). . time.com. Archived from the original on November 9, 2008. Retrieved 2009-02-26.
^"Kentucky Section 145". state.ky.us. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
^Mississippi Constitution of the State of Mississippi See Article 12, Section 241
^Arkansas Ballot Measures: An Amendment Concerning Voting, Qualifications of Voters and Election Officers, and the Time of Holding General Elections (Amendment 1) : For the November 4, 2008 General Election, votesmart.org.
^Michael Tanner and R.J. Hollingdale (1990). Glossary of Names in Nietzsche's "The Antichrist". Penguin Books. p 200
^Nietzsche, Friedrich (1990). The Antichrist. Penguin Books. p. 153 (§ 31).
^Nietzsche, Friedrich (1895). . Archived from the original on 2007-09-23. Retrieved 2007-09-21. To make a hero of Jesus! And even more, what a misunderstanding is the word 'genius'! Our whole concept, our cultural concept, of 'spirit' has no meaning whatever in the world in which Jesus lives. Spoken with the precision of a physiologist, even an entirely different word would be yet more fitting here—the word idiot. (§ 29, partially quoted here, contains three words that were suppressed by Nietzsche's sister when she published The Antichrist in 1895. The words are: 'das Wort Idiot,' translated here as 'the word idiot'. They were not made public until 1931, by Josef Hofmiller. H.L. Mencken's 1920 translation does not contain these words.)
Sources
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Insanity" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 597–618.
Pilcz, Alexander (1911). "Mental Pathology" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
idiot, other, uses, disambiguation, idiot, modern, stupid, foolish, person, evert, larock, 1892, formerly, technical, term, legal, psychiatric, contexts, some, kinds, profound, intellectual, disability, where, mental, years, less, person, cannot, guard, themse. For other uses see Idiot disambiguation An idiot in modern use is a stupid or foolish person The Idiot by Evert Larock 1892 Idiot was formerly a technical term in legal and psychiatric contexts for some kinds of profound intellectual disability where the mental age is two years or less and the person cannot guard themself against common physical dangers The term was gradually replaced by profound mental retardation which has since been replaced by other terms 1 Along with terms like moron imbecile retard and cretin its use to describe people with mental disabilities is considered archaic and offensive 2 Moral idiocy refers to a moral disability Contents 1 Etymology 2 Disability and early classification and nomenclature 3 Regional law 3 1 United States 4 In literature 5 References 5 1 Citations 5 2 Sources 6 External linksEtymologyThe word idiot comes from the Greek noun ἰdiwths idiōtes a private person individual as opposed to the state a private citizen as opposed to someone with a political office a common man a person lacking professional skill layman later unskilled ignorant derived from the adjective ἴdios idios personal not public not shared 3 4 In Latin idiota was borrowed in the meaning uneducated ignorant common 5 and in Late Latin came to mean crude illiterate ignorant 6 In French it kept the meaning of illiterate ignorant and added the meaning stupid in the 13th century 7 In English it added the meaning mentally deficient in the 14th century 2 Many political commentators starting as early as 1856 have interpreted the word idiot as reflecting the Ancient Athenians attitudes to civic participation and private life combining the ancient meaning of private citizen with the modern meaning fool to conclude that the Greeks used the word to say that it is selfish and foolish not to participate in public life 8 But this is not how the Greeks used the word It is certainly true that the Greeks valued civic participation and criticized non participation Thucydides quotes Pericles Funeral Oration as saying we regard him who takes no part in these public duties not as unambitious but as useless ton te mhdὲn tῶnde metexonta oὐk ἀpragmona ἀll ἀxreῖon nomizomen 9 However neither he nor any other ancient author uses the word idiot to describe non participants or in a derogatory sense its most common use was simply a private citizen or amateur as opposed to a government official professional or expert 10 The derogatory sense came centuries later and was unrelated to the political meaning 11 4 2 Disability and early classification and nomenclatureIn 19th and early 20th century medicine and psychology an idiot was a person with a very profound intellectual disability being diagnosed with idiocy In the early 1900s Dr Henry H Goddard proposed a classification system for intellectual disability based on the Binet Simon concept of mental age Individuals with the lowest mental age level less than three years were identified as idiots imbeciles had a mental age of three to seven years and morons had a mental age of seven to ten years 12 The term idiot was used to refer to people having an IQ below 30 citation needed 13 14 IQ or intelligence quotient was originally determined by dividing a person s mental age as determined by standardized tests by their actual age The concept of mental age has fallen into disfavor though and IQ is now determined on the basis of statistical distributions 15 In the obsolete medical classification ICD 9 1977 these people were said to have profound mental retardation or profound mental subnormality with IQ under 20 16 Regional lawThis section needs to be updated Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information December 2011 United States Until 2007 the California Penal Code Section 26 stated that Idiots were one of six types of people who are not capable of committing crimes In 2007 the code was amended to read persons who are mentally incapacitated 17 In 2008 Iowa voters passed a measure replacing idiot or insane person in the State s constitution with person adjudged mentally incompetent 18 In the constitution of several U S states idiots do not have the right to vote Kentucky Section 145 19 Mississippi Article 12 Section 241 20 Ohio Article V Section 6 21 The constitution of the state of Arkansas was amended in the general election of 2008 to among other things repeal a provision Article 3 Section 5 which had until its repeal prohibited idiots or insane persons from voting 22 In literatureA few authors have used idiot characters in novels plays and poetry Often these characters are used to highlight or indicate something else allegory Examples of such usage are William Faulkner s The Sound and the Fury Daphne du Maurier s Rebecca and William Wordsworth s The Idiot Boy Idiot characters in literature are often confused with or subsumed within mad or lunatic characters The most common intersection between these two categories of mental impairment occurs in the polemic surrounding Edmund from William Shakespeare s King Lear In Fyodor Dostoevsky s novel The Idiot the title refers to the central character Prince Myshkin a man whose innocence kindness and humility combined with his occasional epileptic symptoms cause many in the corrupt egoistic culture around him to mistakenly assume that he lacks intelligence In The Antichrist Nietzsche applies the word idiot to Jesus in a comparable fashion almost certainly in an allusion to Dostoevsky s use of the word 23 One has to regret that no Dostoevsky lived in the neighbourhood of this most interesting decadent I mean someone who could feel the thrilling fascination of such a combination of the sublime the sick and the childish 24 25 ReferencesCitations The Clinical History of Moron Idiot and Imbecile merriam webster com a b c Oxford English Dictionary s v J Diggle ed The Cambridge Greek Lexicon 2021 ISBN 9780521826808 s v p 702 a b Liddell Scott Jones A Greek English Lexicon s v ἰdiwths and ἴdios A Latin Dictionary s v du Cange Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis s v Tresor de la langue francaise informatise s v a R L Gibson Louisiana Notes of European Travel France De Bow s Review 21 3rd series 1 375 405 1856 p 389 b The Sanitary Era 6 117 12 October 1892 New York p 210 c Bouck White The Free City A Book of Neighborhood 1919 p 53 d John Robertson Macarthur Ancient Greece in Modern America 1943 p 195 e Anthamatten Eric 2017 06 12 Trump and the True Meaning of Idiot The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on 2022 01 03 Retrieved 2017 06 26 f Parker Walter C January 1 2005 Teaching against Idiocy Phi Delta Kappan 86 5 344 351 doi 10 1177 003172170508600504 S2CID 144893136 Thucydides The Peloponnesian War Thuc 2 40 Matthew Landauer The Idiōtes and the Tyrant Two Faces of Unaccountability in Democratic Athens Political Theory 42 2 139 166 April 2014 JSTOR 24571390 p 145 Sparkes A W 1988 Idiots ancient and modern Australian Journal of Political Science 23 1 101 102 doi 10 1080 00323268808402051 Zaretsky Herbert H Richter Edwin F Eisenberg Myron G 2005 Medical aspects of disability a handbook for the rehabilitation professional third edition illustrated ed Springer Publishing Company p 346 ISBN 978 0 8261 7973 9 Rapley Mark 2004 The Social Construction of Intellectual Disability Cambridge University Press p 32 ISBN 978 0 521 00529 6 Cruz Isagani A Quaison Camilo D 2003 Correct Choice of Words English Grammar Series for Filipino Lawyers 2003 ed Rex Bookstore Inc pp 444 445 ISBN 978 971 23 3686 7 Vibeke Grover Aukrust 2011 Learning and Cognition Elsevier pp 95 96 ISBN 978 0 12 381438 8 World Health Organization 1977 Manual of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases Injuries and Causes of Death PDF Vol 1 Jeneva p 213 Penal Code section 25 29 State of California Archived from the original on 2009 06 27 Retrieved 2007 09 21 Sharples Tiffany 5 November 2008 Ballot Initiatives No to Gay Marriage Anti Abortion Measures time com Archived from the original on November 9 2008 Retrieved 2009 02 26 Kentucky Section 145 state ky us Retrieved 17 December 2018 Mississippi Constitution of the State of Mississippi See Article 12 Section 241 Ohio Constitution Article V Section 6 www legislature ohio gov Retrieved 17 December 2018 Arkansas Ballot Measures An Amendment Concerning Voting Qualifications of Voters and Election Officers and the Time of Holding General Elections Amendment 1 For the November 4 2008 General Election votesmart org Michael Tanner and R J Hollingdale 1990 Glossary of Names in Nietzsche s The Antichrist Penguin Books p 200 Nietzsche Friedrich 1990 The Antichrist Penguin Books p 153 31 Nietzsche Friedrich 1895 The Antichrist Archived from the original on 2007 09 23 Retrieved 2007 09 21 To make a hero of Jesus And even more what a misunderstanding is the word genius Our whole concept our cultural concept of spirit has no meaning whatever in the world in which Jesus lives Spoken with the precision of a physiologist even an entirely different word would be yet more fitting here the word idiot 29 partially quoted here contains three words that were suppressed by Nietzsche s sister when she published The Antichrist in 1895 The words are das Wort Idiot translated here as the word idiot They were not made public until 1931 by Josef Hofmiller H L Mencken s 1920 translation does not contain these words Sources Chisholm Hugh ed 1911 Insanity Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 14 11th ed Cambridge University Press pp 597 618 Pilcz Alexander 1911 Mental Pathology In Herbermann Charles ed Catholic Encyclopedia Vol 11 New York Robert Appleton Company External links Wikisource has the text of the 1879 American Cyclopaedia article Idiocy The dictionary definition of idiot at Wiktionary Quotations related to Idiot at Wikiquote Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Idiot amp oldid 1127215455, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
